‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 3 Deep Dive and Theories: Trumpism in the Friend Group

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by salty, cheesy, cheese-it crackers. Should this whole podcast just be me eating cheese-it? That would be a top-notch podcast.

Speaker 1 You could hear them crunching in my mouth. You could think about how salty and savory and delicious they are.
You could just get cheese-it on the brain. Oh man, those cheese-it cravings, they get you.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 what was I talking about? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, cheese-it. Yeah, cheese-it crackers.
Go check them out.

Speaker 2 This episode of the Press Siege TV podcast is brought to you by Coffee Mate.

Speaker 1 Coffee Mate has been searching the globe for flavors that pair perfectly with coffee.

Speaker 2 So when they heard that the new season of HBO's The White Lotus was set in Thailand, they were inspired to brew up two new flavors, Thai iced coffee and piña colada flavored creamers.

Speaker 1 They're available for a short time only. So for the love of coffee, go try them now.

Speaker 2 Hello, welcome back to the Press to Use TV podcast feed.

Speaker 1 I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 2 We're here to talk about White Lotus Season 3, Episode 3, The Meaning of Dreams.

Speaker 2 Rob, how are you doing?

Speaker 1 I'm doing great. I don't have any dreams of note to mark down as far as to parse their meaning.
Do you have any dreams you want to pick apart today?

Speaker 2 Gosh, no.

Speaker 1 We've already been through uh rob mahoney anxiety dream corner on a different pod that's true we've already talked about that do i have a recurring anxiety dream well let me ask you this saxon brings up you know the very primal idea of having nightmares about fire and snakes i can't say i've ever had a nightmare about fire and snakes have you are you are you a snake dreamer no i'm not a snake dreamer but what a fun thing that would to be um

Speaker 2 uh no i don't i can't remember my dreams and i think that's a blessing i think mostly my dreams are like awkward, socially anxious interactions.

Speaker 2 I think those are my usual nightmares, nothing primal or elemental or anything like that. Do you know?

Speaker 1 Exactly. Yeah, you're approaching people you think may have murdered a woman you met several years ago, and they give you a blank stare while in response.
That's the kind of nightmare you have.

Speaker 2 But do you think Belinda knows that you're talking about Belinda and our guy, Greg Gary?

Speaker 1 Not my guy, your guy, but like not my guy, nobody's guy.

Speaker 2 Do you think Chloe's guy, Greg Gary? Do you think Belinda knows about

Speaker 1 what happened to Tanya? Well, clearly not, or else she would be having a more outsized response. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Uh,

Speaker 2 I feel like if, if I, oh, let me say this. If I'm Belinda and I know what happened to Tanya,

Speaker 2 I am not approaching Greg Gary. No, that's not happening.

Speaker 1 Say far, far away. The last thing you would want is to be on his radar at that point.

Speaker 2 Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Shout out to a couple of our listeners who wrote in to let us know that, you know, we talked about the voice cameo in episode two.

Speaker 2 The voice cameo in this episode as the Ratliff lawyer, is the podcaster, Scott Galloway.

Speaker 2 He has a really charming anecdote on his own podcast about how Jason Isaacs came over to his house to give him acting lessons. And he didn't know that it was Jason Isaacs or who Jason Isaacs was.

Speaker 2 It was just like this handsome man came to his house to give him acting lessons. And then he found out it was Lucius Malfoy.

Speaker 2 But anyway, he got cast because you know, the producers were a fan of him, a fan of his voice.

Speaker 2 Then he did tried, took some swings at this, and they're like, oh, no, podcasters are not the same as actors.

Speaker 2 And then they got him the Jason Isaacs acting boot camp package.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, it seems quite lush. Imagine not knowing who Jason Isaacs is if he shows up at your front door.
That's that's a tough beat, but that's an acting coach to have.

Speaker 2 Scott's been busy doing knowing a lot about a lot of other things.

Speaker 1 We are available, by the way, for voice cameos.

Speaker 1 If you need like a 911 dispatcher, a concerned lawyer, a panicking panicking co-worker as the office is being raided by the FBI, like for all of your projects.

Speaker 1 I think, I don't want to speak for you, Joe, but I think we would be interested. We would take the meeting.

Speaker 2 Do you have a theater kid background?

Speaker 1 No, of course not. Yeah, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 yeah, that's you are good at basketball and I am not.

Speaker 1 We all have our talent.

Speaker 1 I am not.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 We already talked about the dreams. This is the name of the episode.
We open with Victoria Ratliff's dream.

Speaker 2 I want to talk to you about this concept of the collective unconscious, which is what Piper and Vicky are talking about when they're talking about the dreams, or mostly Piper is talking about.

Speaker 2 Any thoughts or feelings on the collective?

Speaker 1 Just broadly speaking. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Pro if it exists, ambiguous to me if it does. But I'm open to the possibility.

Speaker 2 This is like

Speaker 2 a Carl Jung joint, a Jungian

Speaker 2 idea.

Speaker 1 And I have to say, Jung really went off with this one.

Speaker 1 Really knew what he was doing.

Speaker 2 He showed out and he showed up. And I love that for him.

Speaker 2 This idea of the collective unconscious is common to all human beings.

Speaker 2 He believed the collective unconscious is responsible for a number of deep-seated beliefs and instincts, such as spirituality, sexual behavior, and life and death.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 it's more about the nature, but this versus nurture, but this idea that your nature is somehow passed down through the generations. It's sort of imprinted on you.

Speaker 2 And I think that's really interesting to think about, especially in terms of what we talked about last week in terms of the roles or the identities or the positions that these people find themselves in.

Speaker 2 And can they break out of them or can they not? Can Piper be different from her family? Or is she doomed to just be ratliffian like the rest of her life?

Speaker 2 What about these lessons that Vicky has to impart on them about what does or does not designate a trashy rich person?

Speaker 2 You know, like these are all, you know, important questions.

Speaker 2 Can you correct your posture to break out of your people pleaser status? Like all of this idea is really rich inside of the Mike White universe.

Speaker 1 Well, there's so much posturing happening, especially among people of this kind of class.

Speaker 1 And I think you're right to point out Victoria's statement about trashy rich people versus non-trashy rich people, because not only in the collective unconsciousness is there this like

Speaker 1 generational passing of humanity and understanding and shared experience, there's also like a pervasive, broad humanity that we are all tapping into together collectively.

Speaker 1 And so, this idea that we are drawing these very strict defining lines between us, that you know, Tim Ratliff couldn't possibly be the kind of person who takes drugs, he couldn't possibly be the kind of person who takes a nap because who would do such a thing?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and yet it's just very important to so many of these people that they appear in the world in a very particular way.

Speaker 1 And that's, I would think, what gets in the way of your ability to tap into the collective unconscious if it's out there.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 2 I do want to just, we don't have like a ton of emails to get to this week, uh, but I do want to skip to this one that you just mentioned, Tim taking the Loras Pam.

Speaker 2 Loras Pam Tim, maybe my new favorite TV character of all time. I'm a big fan.
Yeah. I can't wait to see where we go.
Um, I want to talk to him, to you about his showering habits in a second, but um,

Speaker 2 Jackie, our listener, Jackie wrote in, call me crazy, but Tim Ratliff dry swallowing a pill is way more unhinged than Rick releasing a bunch of of venomous snakes.

Speaker 2 I am an Australian, though, so maybe a matter of perspective.

Speaker 2 Dry swallowing a pill, would you do it, Rob Mahoney?

Speaker 1 Would do, have done, not my preference, but I think it depends on the size of the pill.

Speaker 2 There's something just really uncomfortable to me watching

Speaker 2 Tim just sort of snap his head back as he dry swallowed the pill. I don't know.

Speaker 1 For me, it was much more him putting the pill on a hotel couch cushion and then putting it directly in his mouth. That was what stuck out to me about that sequence.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Tim Ratliff is making great use of the outdoor shower

Speaker 2 at the villa.

Speaker 1 But it's not a good sign if you're taking slow-motion showers as far as your overall state of mind.

Speaker 2 I really agree.

Speaker 2 How do you feel about an outdoor shower, Ramahoni?

Speaker 1 I mean, only as an application post-pool or post-ocean. As like a general daily practice,

Speaker 1 I don't really see it for myself.

Speaker 2 Feels too vulnerable, TD. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm open to some windows, but I want a closed, I want a closed environment.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Any, I really want to talk about Piper Rat Lift, actually, sort of more than anyone else, but

Speaker 2 what do you want to say about the Rat Lifts? And I'll get to my Piper takes.

Speaker 1 I mean, starting with Tim.

Speaker 1 I agree with you, Lazipam. Tim is a wonderful television invention.

Speaker 1 I enjoyed watching him go from basically like fully clenched, mentally shredding his own brain with anxiety into absolutely blissed out slash slash napped out that was just a great transition point for the show and i i can't wait to see where it goes i'm a little worried we're getting into like leaving las vegas territory uh with tim where it's like he's he's seeing the end of the line he's starting to make some pretty dramatic moves he wants the phones in the bag uh wants to be well he didn't want to be cut off from the outside world but he certainly wanted everyone else to now that his little white collar secret has escaped containment right it's no longer him gathering information It's people calling in.

Speaker 1 There's agents at the office. What the fuck is happening? Everyone is panicking.
Everyone is freaking out. And I will say the most tragic

Speaker 1 offshoot of that to me is him taking Saxon aside and Saxon finally getting his sweet, sweet moment of daddy affirmation. And it is basically also that he will shut up and put his phone in the bag.

Speaker 1 It's just, it's a really tough look and a really tough moment for admittedly a contemptible character, but one who only wants one thing and it's daddy's approval.

Speaker 2 Well, no, he wants to.

Speaker 1 Okay, sorry. He wants a couple things.

Speaker 1 I want to step, step back.

Speaker 2 He doesn't want the big dogs to respect him. He does.
That's, you know, no one's a bigger dog in his mind than his dad. He's the biggest dog.
He is.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Tim.

Speaker 2 The unraveling that we're seeing here is sort of something I was really hoping for because I was just talking to our pal Van Lathan about he's been speed binging White Lotus season one and season two because he's obsessed with season three

Speaker 2 and is like, I can't watch anymore season three, I'm out. And I was like, Go back and watch the previous seasons.
So he has in the last, like, I don't know, 48 hours or something.

Speaker 2 But he was talking to me yesterday about the great unraveling. He was, he was like having a slow hang with season two, and then he was like, he called it like the great unraveling.

Speaker 2 And I think that that is something that is, we know, is so key to every season of White Lotus: is just like watching Armand unravel or watching, you know, whoever it might be, Aubrey Plaza's character in season two, if you want if you want to call that an unraveling, and I do.

Speaker 2 And so this Tim eyeballing Tim from the start as the person who would be the funniest to watch Unravel and getting that so quickly in the season.

Speaker 2 I think it's only up from here, honestly, with Larazapampton.

Speaker 1 A lot of promising possibilities. You know, I just don't think we're going to get the tsunami, Joe.
We're going to get the tsunami of the soul, right?

Speaker 1 We're going to get Tim Ratliff being the man standing in front of the wave at the end of the day, I think, is what might happen. Metaphorically, of course, metaphorically speaking.
But

Speaker 1 one of our listeners, Bree emailed in with an interesting thought that I had not considered, which is, what if what exposed Tim Ratliff's crimes in the first place was something like Saxon's incompetence at work, right?

Speaker 1 What if Saxon, our guy who is very Vincent adultman in his

Speaker 1 the way he talks about his job? Like, I love work so much.

Speaker 1 i love job uh i love being this guy doesn't seem to know what he is doing for a living i would imagine is not very good at it would not surprise me one bit if an email sent to the wrong place by saxon ended up resulting in this kind of investigation or ended up kind of moving some of the wheels in motion as far as how tim ultimately got here um

Speaker 2 yeah i mean that feels like the least of Saxon's potential crimes in this show, but I think it's definitely on the table for sure.

Speaker 2 Also on the Lorazepam front,

Speaker 2 one of our listeners, Chris wrote in, you know, because Vick says, Vicki says, they're not addictive. I just take them when I need them.

Speaker 1 This is not true.

Speaker 2 This is

Speaker 2 deeply untrue, true about lorazepam, which is not, Chris wanted to let us know, is not a sleeping pill, even though Tim is using them to get his nap reps in.

Speaker 2 This is an anti-anxiety medication. This is sort of like a quick acting, sort of brief window.
Are you afraid of flying?

Speaker 2 Take this Lorazepam as you like, you know, as you're taking off and you will make it through the flight. Yeah.
Which is perhaps why Tim is like housing them because the window is small.

Speaker 2 So how many pills does Victoria have left in her bottle? I have, I have questions about that.

Speaker 1 And what's going to happen to her when she runs out, right? Once Tim has consumed, once he's popped every pill there is to pop. I worry about Victoria at this point.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that'll be so interesting because like it's one thing to watch Laura's Pam Tim become more and more unhinged.

Speaker 1 Sober, sober Victoria. I can't even imagine her.

Speaker 1 No, who is she?

Speaker 2 I can't wait to find out.

Speaker 2 All right, so let's talk about Piper. And one of our listeners, Laura, pointed this out, and I think it's really worth ruminating on this idea of the

Speaker 2 Piper archetype that we've gotten a version of each season on this show.

Speaker 2 And she points out like Paula, who's Sidney Sweeney's friend in the first season.

Speaker 2 And she mentioned Harper Aubrey Plaza's character in the second season.

Speaker 2 This person who's almost like a stand-in for the audience, who sort of like sees the hypocrisy, sees the shitty behavior, calls it out.

Speaker 2 You know, Piper has that great line about what the White Lotus actually is. And, you know, right then, the blonde blob come in, the fancies come in, and they're Lululemon yoga.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, Piper's, Piper's got a keen eye on everything. But what usually happens in a season of White Lotus to those characters is that Mike White

Speaker 2 shows them,

Speaker 2 like exposes them as sort of as fallible, as as

Speaker 2 vulnerable to the temptations of the White Lotus experience or to shitty behavior or anything like that.

Speaker 1 So which I would say is a critical part of why the show works the way it does. Like you, you can't just have the preachy person off to the side commenting on everyone.

Speaker 1 Like it's so much more interesting when those characters themselves can be co-opted, are susceptible to why everyone is here in the first place.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I don't feel like Mike White's treatment of them is that he's like punishing them for their behavior, but just showing that we all are in a very similar,

Speaker 2 you know, luxury yacht, if you want to look forward to next week's episode. So like,

Speaker 2 what do you see coming? for Piper, who we got a little bit more information on when she went to go visit the monastery.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was such an interesting sequence for her because she goes, you know, she is greeted by this very friendly monk with a MacBook,

Speaker 1 a monk book.

Speaker 1 She makes her appointment

Speaker 1 and then just breezes on out.

Speaker 1 And like, what my understanding from her from both of these sequences when she first goes to visit the temple and when she returns here and is like seems pretty deeply incurious, honestly, for somebody who wants to be potentially spending a year here in a program furthering her education, deepening her spirituality.

Speaker 1 Like she makes her appointment and then she doesn't even bother to look around to talk to anyone else to even kind of like take in the scene. It's like, oh, job done.
I'm up out of here.

Speaker 2 It's also very, it's very surface. Like, so this idea seems to be that Piper wants to do a program.

Speaker 2 However long she's going to stay there, we don't know, but this is not what she has pitched to her parents as to why she's there.

Speaker 2 So she wants to do a program where presumably she stays at the monastery for some period of time. And if it were me, I would want to see where are we sleeping at the monastery.

Speaker 1 Reasonable.

Speaker 2 What's their daily schedule like? What is all of that? And it is very, yes, I think white girl privilege to be like, I'm going to go to a monastery in Thailand and everything is going to be better.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to be so enlightened. And I don't know anything about the practicalities of what this actually is.
That sounds, that sounds absolutely correct to me.

Speaker 1 So she even kind of shoots a little glance to the tourists who are there in a way that's like a tiny little throwaway moment, but to me is very aloof and like, aha, like, I am, I am of this environment, like, I will soon be a member of this place, and you are but a mere visitor, despite the fact that I actually know nothing about what it means to be here and live here or practice this faith at all.

Speaker 2 Exciting times for Carbaratl.

Speaker 2 I'm sure everything will go perfectly well for her.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 2 Sexon mentions that they are invited on Greg Gary's boat. We'll talk about that a little bit more in a a second for this, what he calls this full moon big holiday, which is

Speaker 2 a huge holiday in Thailand. Every full moon they celebrate with this like massive

Speaker 2 beach party in the island that's one over from where the white lotus is being filmed.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the description that I found was more than 12. more than 12 powerful sound systems turn the 800 meter beach into possibly the most popular open-air nightclub in the world once a month.

Speaker 2 Once a month is like a heavy investment for like we're putting on the world's biggest beach rave, but we're doing it every month.

Speaker 2 Any hopes or dreams for the full moon party?

Speaker 2 I mean, how can you, if you're Mike White and you're like, we're going to set a season in Thailand and once a month they have the world's biggest beach rave on this island. How do you,

Speaker 2 especially since as we've heard over and over again, that Mike White, the season came to Mike White in like a fever drug dream when he was in the hospital. Right.

Speaker 2 So, how can you not say, Let's go to a Thai beach rave?

Speaker 2 Is this something you're excited for in a future episode of White Lotus? Without a doubt.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm excited for the yacht trip over there and all the exciting possibilities, especially as it seems like our groups are going to be intermingling a little bit in some potentially surprising ways.

Speaker 1 And we already get the developing

Speaker 1 love maybe strong lust triangle between Greg Gary, Chloe, and Saxon, who have now been officially formally introduced and maybe raising some eyebrows at each other over one of them being a douche.

Speaker 1 Look, who am I to judge if someone has a type? You know, they're into what they're into. But all of these people are going to be in one space with potentially as many rat lifts as want to come.

Speaker 1 I think Rick is assumingly going to be off in Bangkok, which is unfortunate, because I would love to see him get after it at the rave.

Speaker 1 I think the raving characters I am most excited about are those you would not anticipate ever ending up at a rave. So Victoria at a rave.
Let's fucking go, right? Like, honestly, Gary at a rave.

Speaker 1 I want to see

Speaker 1 what this guy is up to.

Speaker 2 Piper at a rave. Chelsea at a rave, I feel like I know exactly what that's like.
And I love that for her.

Speaker 1 She was born at a rave.

Speaker 2 Life's a rave for Chelsea. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Okay, to wrap up the Ratliffs as well as we can inside of their isolated storyline. Tim Ratliff, let's go back to Lorazapam, Tim.

Speaker 2 We mentioned last week that we've gotten several emails about this concept of like family annihilator,

Speaker 2 which you and I both were like,

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 1 it seems slightly more plausible this week. Does it? A little bit.

Speaker 1 I still don't think White Lotus is that kind of show.

Speaker 1 And like, it's, it's honestly, Mike White has seemed over the years so conflicted about the murder part of White Lotus that the idea of wiping out like half the cast in a mass murder doesn't seem like what he is interested in.

Speaker 1 But I'm, I am willing and able to be surprised, clearly.

Speaker 2 What about the idea of Lorazipam Tim as the body in the water that Zion found?

Speaker 2 Whether or not that body in the water is dead, we actually don't know. It's true.
Certainly floating as if dead, but not confirmed dead necessarily.

Speaker 2 So could that be Lorazapam Tim having like taken a stumble from the outdoor shower into the outdoor pond? And

Speaker 1 I didn't even think about the outdoor shower,

Speaker 1 the falling risks of the outdoor shower while hopped up on Lorazapam. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's a great theory. I think there's a very reasonable chance of that.

Speaker 2 Is Tim top of your list? Who's top of your list for like who the body is?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think based on this week, I'm going to say yes.

Speaker 2 All right, Tim. I'm not rooting for you because you seem like you've done some shitty things.
And in general, I don't root for rich people who have

Speaker 2 embezzled money. But, you know,

Speaker 2 life is long.

Speaker 1 You didn't vote for Trump, though, did you?

Speaker 1 Are we really going to talk about Trump tonight?

Speaker 2 Let's talk about the fancies, the blonde pawns, shall we?

Speaker 2 Okay, I wanted to ask you how you feel.

Speaker 2 I can't remember if Mal, Bill, and I got into the specifics of this. We talked about this a little bit, but like, I'm really curious about Mike White's decision to

Speaker 2 like put Trump into this season. Because, of course, last season, we got the voter versus non-voter conversation

Speaker 2 in the in the two couples. And that was very like sort of like Trump not Trump coded for sure in a way.
But to

Speaker 2 put Trump's name in there, again, making this season not knowing how the election was going to pan out. How do you, how do you feel about that as a choice?

Speaker 1 Feels. like it aligns with the show.
I mean, this is a show that talks about privilege, that talks about class.

Speaker 1 Like if you thought you were tuning into White Lotus to get away from the political sphere,

Speaker 1 I don't know what show you've been watching. And you are sadly mistaken, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 Like, this is a show that deals with the economic realities of these people and what they care about and don't care about, what they value and don't value.

Speaker 1 Putting the name Trump in there to me is just an extension of that. In this case, like a very sharp dividing wedge between these three women, one of whom is, you know, she's not a Republican, Joe.

Speaker 1 She is an independent.

Speaker 1 Let's be very honest about everything that's happening here.

Speaker 1 We really want to talk about Trump tonight.

Speaker 1 Okay. The bless your heart magic that plays across Kate's face.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Unbelievable accent from Bibb.

Speaker 2 Eyes full squint. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 It's so good.

Speaker 2 Smile, no teeth. Very good stuff from Leslie Bibb.

Speaker 2 Rob, as a Texan, how do you feel about Texas being invoked in this in this particular way?

Speaker 1 Fair.

Speaker 1 That said,

Speaker 1 Kate has said that she's from Austin.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 I think this is what someone would say if they are from the area more broadly. I'm going to guess it's more Lakeway B Cave.

Speaker 1 Like that, that's the kind of vibe that I'm getting from Kate's overall deal, which as we can infer is like country club husband, like corporate high life.

Speaker 1 You know, she is, she's living a kind of privileged existence that is not demographically Austin, but is certainly adjacent to Austin.

Speaker 1 Like there's a lot of very white, very affluent, very conservative parts around the city proper.

Speaker 2 You know, I have spent a lot of, I go to Austin a couple of times every year. I love, but I don't, I've never lived in Austin.
I'm a mere visitor, so I'm not like trying to make any uh broad.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe I am, but anyway, Joe, go off, say what you got to say.

Speaker 2 I love Austin. I love Austin.
I will say I've had

Speaker 2 the most shocking things that have ever been said to me by a Lyft driver have been said to me by a Lyft driver in Austin.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 can you expand, please?

Speaker 2 Just racial stuff.

Speaker 2 I think I look like I might be receptive to someone saying things that

Speaker 2 I am not receptive to.

Speaker 1 So, um, how does that make you feel that that's the energy that you put out into the world?

Speaker 2 Feels great. It's like how people would never offer me drugs because they think I look like a narc.
Uh, you know, it's just like it's just my life. Um,

Speaker 2 something that the official podcast brought up that I thought was really interesting is the way that they transitioned inside of this conversation from um

Speaker 2 talking about religion, yeah, to talking about Trumpism and this idea of Trumpism as a kind of religion, a kind of belief system

Speaker 2 in a way that previous political movements in America have not quite felt as,

Speaker 2 you know, cult-like is one way to describe it or however you want to describe it. But like

Speaker 2 this idea of like

Speaker 2 the figure, the figure that we follow sort of idea of Trumpism. And

Speaker 2 another thing that I thought was really interesting that Gia Tolentino brought up on the official podcast is this idea of like, when we first meet the blonde blob, as they are described by Mike White,

Speaker 2 Lori says it's like looking in the mirror, which of course is something that like Jacqueline doesn't love to hear from Lori, by the way. But like,

Speaker 2 how, how Mike White really wanted to make it seem like these women are not that different. And in so many ways, they aren't that different.
Even though

Speaker 2 we've dialed in on certain things that they either share or don't share, we've got two women who are moms versus a woman who is not a mom, or we've got two women who have invested a lot of time and money in like plastic surgery and stuff like that versus a woman who maybe hasn't,

Speaker 2 women who have focused on the career versus not, all this sort of stuff. So, like, these various little differences, what's the biggest wedge you can drive? Is it Trumpism? Is it something else?

Speaker 2 But then, at the end of the day, how actually similar they are and how interesting I think that is inside of this sort of Trump conversation of like

Speaker 2 Lori and Jacqueline are like, oh no, Kate is so different from us. We did not realize how different she is.

Speaker 2 And then the question is, actually, how different is a white privileged woman who votes for Trump versus a white privileged woman who doesn't vote for Trump inside of this context?

Speaker 2 I think that's the question the show is asking.

Speaker 1 I think it is too. I think it's so powerful in that way because you're right.

Speaker 1 These are three women who have a lot of things in common at the same time are in quite different places, but they are paired off in all of those fascinating ways.

Speaker 1 Like, I hadn't even thought about the career, like the careerist aspect and how Jacqueline and Lori might have that potentially in common.

Speaker 1 And we, we get to see them spend some quality time together, if at Kate's expense for a lot of this episode. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But, like, it's cool to see all of these different ways in which it is naturally two versus one in every possible direction within this friend group.

Speaker 1 And that only works if it feels balanced, if you're going to create this dynamic.

Speaker 1 Like, you could write the show around having a very clear in-group, out-group, but it's more interesting if it's sort of a revolving door and one of them is always feeling a little bit left out of whatever's happening.

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 what I have my eye on most inside of this group in terms of things I'm

Speaker 2 worried about or suspicious about

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 Jacqueline has had a few speeches now that seem very much like a I'm a girl's girl kind of speech, like talking about the patriarchal nature of religion or just that and the other thing a lot of masculine feminine in this episode like very directly called out yeah

Speaker 2 i don't trust that jacqueline lemon is a girl's girl at the end of the day i do not think that that is her energy at all and um

Speaker 2 i am

Speaker 2 i'm worried about the way in which she's pushing valentina on lori yep and i'm worried about how that is all going to shake out at the end of the day

Speaker 1 it feels like a real swooping in situation for jacqueline potentially i i liked what you mentioned joe on the sunday pod about the flex of Jacqueline here.

Speaker 1 It's not just pushing Lori, but let me help you set this up. Let me make this happen for you.
Not dissimilar from what Saxon is doing with Locky, right? Like all hands on deck.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm going to hook you up. I'm going to show you how to do this.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the dynamic between the two women is a little different, but it is very much like pushing in a way that feels like projecting, in a way that feels like Jacqueline really wants to sleep with Valentin.

Speaker 1 And you can imagine a scenario where maybe Lori does get some confidence.

Speaker 1 Maybe she does end up pursuing pursuing Valentin, and Jacqueline kind of interjects herself into that dynamic at a time where she may not be as welcome as she is right now.

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 1 But in all of this, Lori is feeling like a little tentative at the beginning of this episode about that very idea. She talks about how, you know what, he probably wouldn't even want it anyway, Joe.

Speaker 1 He probably wouldn't be interested in someone like me.

Speaker 2 Poor old Carrie Kuhn.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, in real life, I don't know if you caught this last week, but Carrie Kuhn went on the Marin podcast and was talking about her relationship with the legend Tracy Letz, their marriage.

Speaker 1 There was a bit of a misunderstanding where listeners thought she had nodded in the direction of like, actually, maybe we have an open marriage. Maybe we have an open relationship.

Speaker 1 Listener, let me tell you, the internet fucking exploded. So

Speaker 1 Carrie Kuhn herself getting lots of interest from parties. She is not even remotely interested in reciprocating.
Our girl Lori is just going through it, though.

Speaker 1 She doesn't seem to understand her appeal to the world.

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Speaker 1 Dashing through the store, Dave's looking for a gift. One you can't ignore.
Run out the stocks he picks. I know, I'm putting them back.
Hey, Dave, here's a tip. Put scratchers on your list.

Speaker 1 Oh, scratchers, good idea. It's an easy shopping trip.
We're glad we could assist. Thanks, random singing people.
So be like Dave this holiday and give the gift of play.

Speaker 1 Scratchers from the California lottery. A little play can make your day.

Speaker 1 Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Speaker 2 Will you tell me, Rob,

Speaker 2 given that, like, tell me a little bit more about the way in which the internet exploded when they thought Carrie Coon might be on the table for them?

Speaker 1 She had to issue a follow-up statement in which she said that her relationship, she described it as open-minded, describing their kind of more modern sensibilities across the board, not open.

Speaker 1 And of note, for our white lotus purposes, in that statement, did the speak, no, hear, no, see, no, evil monkey emojis all lined up.

Speaker 2 Interesting.

Speaker 1 Is it good guerrilla marketing? Is it good monkey marketing?

Speaker 2 Oh, nice.

Speaker 2 Carrie knows how to play social media, I gotta say. It's true.
I love her.

Speaker 2 Walton Goggins. I already said on the pod with Bella and Mal how excited I was for Grifter Goggins to enter the chat here.
Tell me, tell me how you felt for Rick to

Speaker 2 step out of the doom and gloom into the con man persona that we are so used to seeing Walton Goggins. What did that do do for you personally, Brabahoni?

Speaker 1 It brought an incredible light to my life to see Goggins in charm remote again. And this is relatively muted by Goggins' standards.

Speaker 1 I'm actually starting to believe the Rick has a perpetual migraine commentary and that it's maybe not just an excuse to get out of these conversations because he always seems very burdened by something, very burdened by clearly his upbringing.

Speaker 1 I'm sure some level of constant anxiety. Like my guy.
needs to smoke so fucking bad in this episode that he has to go on a whole ass odyssey to get some weed. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I understand where he's coming from, but he can turn it on when he needs to turn it on.

Speaker 1 And it's certainly enough to kind of start putting his plan in motion here with Surita La as far as how do we get to Bangkok? How do we

Speaker 1 tell you? Ah, sorry.

Speaker 1 Tough scenes for Fabian in this episode as well. You think you know somebody.
You think you know how to pronounce their name. Turns out you've been mistaken for a very long time.

Speaker 1 But yeah, Rick is getting where he needs to go, ultimately. And as far as Chelsea's part of that, I will say

Speaker 1 probably knows more than she's letting on and is more aware of what is happening and is kind of, I think, just kind of like letting everything roll off her back and allowing the universe to play out as it does.

Speaker 1 But she seems too perceptive to be oblivious to the fact that Rick is weird and shady and is like doing all these random little jobs all the time.

Speaker 1 He's doing something.

Speaker 2 Something, you know, Walton Goggins, naming Lou Wood, have been doing a lot of interviews around this episode. This seems to be the like, HBO's like, this is the Rick and Chelsea episode.

Speaker 2 you know, I guess because they go to the snake show, etc.

Speaker 2 Um, and they've been talking a lot about like sort of the background of Rick and Chelsea. Uh, Goggins has said that they've been together for like three years.

Speaker 2 Um, you know, Amy Liu has said she she genuinely believes they're actually soulmates, um, and that there is this idea that their relationship has not always been this,

Speaker 2 that this is a very different phase of Rick's life. Yeah, that he is having, I think, the way that Goggins put it was like a midlife crisis.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, so the idea that

Speaker 2 Chelsea's like, come on, what are you doing? Step out of it.

Speaker 2 Let's have fun is not just like her sort of beating her head against a wall, like that there is a version of Rick that she has traveled with before

Speaker 2 that has been very different from the Rick that she's experiencing at the White Lotus here. And so

Speaker 2 I like knowing that because I'm just like, girl, what are we doing here?

Speaker 2 But if this is like an unusual moment in the life of a partner who has been matching her energy if not quite exactly her level of energy like who could they're

Speaker 1 like nuclear power plants that cannot produce that much energy yeah yeah but look there's plenty in this for her right like she gets to be at this nice resort she gets to experience this kind of life and enjoy all the privileges of it like

Speaker 1 It is interesting to hear that, though, that maybe at one point in time they had an arrangement and now it seems like they have a relationship, right?

Speaker 1 Like her using soulmate, her talking about being his life partner, right? That is a

Speaker 1 maybe overstating what their relationship is from Rick's perspective, but I think is indicative of a certain level of seriousness as far as what they are to each other.

Speaker 2 I think it's what Chelsea has always wanted from him, which is just sort of like,

Speaker 2 I see you, you need me, I'm going to be that for you. But something that Amy Lee Wood said on the official podcast that like really kind of blew my mind is she was like,

Speaker 2 she keeps accusing Rick of being secretive and walled off.

Speaker 2 You know, all this stuff is focused on Rick and what he's hiding. She's like, but we actually know so much about Rick and we don't know anything about Chelsea.
That's true.

Speaker 2 She's just like, she has sort of successfully hidden her life behind this like very bubbly, outgoing.

Speaker 2 not persona, because I do think that's actually who she is, but just sort of like the way she moves through the world.

Speaker 2 She's asking other people about themselves and she's got this insatiable curiosity, which which means she doesn't ever have to talk about herself,

Speaker 2 which is really interesting.

Speaker 1 Kind of a different breed of people pleaser from Lockhey, right?

Speaker 1 There's like the version where you try to like mediate conflict or step out of it in the way he does, and she is a de-escalator in a totally different way.

Speaker 1 Like, she can bring people together, she can talk them down, she can make Rick perk up in spots here and there in a way that no one else can. Bless Chelsea and her presence on this show.

Speaker 1 It's wonderful every single time. And in very good spirits for someone who just got bitten by a fucking liberated Cobra.

Speaker 2 And then she made it to dinner. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, no problem.

Speaker 2 If it were me, I would simply not be leaving the room.

Speaker 1 Nope.

Speaker 2 The dinner would be coming to me.

Speaker 2 Bill very, very, I think, correctly identified me as someone who seems like they should know things about

Speaker 2 astrology.

Speaker 1 You're someone who seems like you should know things about astrology and also someone who looks like they would be receptive to a lift driver's rants.

Speaker 2 We contain multitudes, Ramoni.

Speaker 1 We truly do.

Speaker 2 None of it's true.

Speaker 2 Do you know anything about astrology, Ramoni?

Speaker 1 I imagine I don't look like somebody who would know something about astrology.

Speaker 2 So maybe it'll surprise us.

Speaker 1 But sometimes our preconceptions are correct. And I, in fact, do not.
Not my area of expertise.

Speaker 2 What is your sign?

Speaker 1 Cancer.

Speaker 2 Cancer. I don't know.
I'm going to say that like that means something, but I am not.

Speaker 1 Just nod.

Speaker 1 You just say something vague and ominous, and I'll go along with it. You know, a water sign, emotional.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know the specifics of what it means to be a cancer, but I'm sure our listeners can let us know. Please, we didn't mention up top.

Speaker 1 Please do email us about anything going on with White Lotus, prestige TV at spotify.com, or more importantly, monkeyshootout at gmail.com.

Speaker 2 Thanks so much for mentioning that. Speaking of emails we got and monkey shootouts, we got a couple emails about Sitala's

Speaker 2 outfit at breakfast that she's wearing. There's this like, it's this sort of tan, tan, button-down, sort of loose-fitting thing with this, like, black, what looks to be almost like an ink spot.

Speaker 2 Uh, or some people said they thought it looked like a large bullet hole, or one of our listeners, Dave, uh,

Speaker 2 pointed out to me rightly so that I would know about this. And I do.
Uh, in pirate culture, the black spot means you're marked for death.

Speaker 2 Uh, you receive the black spot, it means uh, death is coming for you.

Speaker 1 So, um, I'm glad you could bring the pirate expertise. you know you may have missed the mark on astrology but no racism rants no but pirate pirate i do have it and uh yeah

Speaker 1 so the black spot on sizala would that be a satisfying death for you this season potentially yeah i think it depends on the way that she kind of weaves into the story of these other characters right if she is just sort of the person who owns the hotel and vaguely interacts and sometimes performs and then dies, that's not super interesting.

Speaker 1 But if strange things happen in Bangkok, if she becomes even more intertwined with the fancies, even more intertwined with Rick as in whatever game he's playing here, and Rick, as he's kind of gearing up to talk to her in the first place, there's so much like Rick Snake stuff happening in this episode overall, but he's very like predatory in terms of the way he's almost like stalking her to her table, like kind of judging the scene, waiting for his moment.

Speaker 1 And I don't know how to interpret that within the context of whether she dies or not, but certainly as far as the game he's playing, it does make sense.

Speaker 2 That was really interesting when they were at the snake show, among other things.

Speaker 1 First of all, would never go to a snake show.

Speaker 2 Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 No circumstances.

Speaker 2 Absolutely not. But the guy running the snake show, who it was like, is like a local guy who runs snake shows.

Speaker 1 I mean, he's a fucking pro. Like, he's great.
Good information, great delivery, knows his way around a Cobra. Like, I would trust those guys with my life.
I just don't want to go to the snake show.

Speaker 2 Absolutely not. He mentions that the Python can kill a big animal.
and we mentioned, I think we mentioned this before.

Speaker 2 That this idea that in some of the opening credit um images, we've seen sort of a smaller animal taking on a predator.

Speaker 2 Um, I think specifically, I would say, in like the Chelsea, the Amy Lou Wood Chelsea title card. So, like, this idea that

Speaker 2 we've had these predators, if you want to say Rick at breakfast, or Saxon in the pool, um, or you know, Tim Ratliff in life, or you know, Gary doing whatever it is he's doing, yeah, Jacqueline Lemon on the hunt for Valentine, whatever it is.

Speaker 2 But are we not paying enough attention to, you know, the smaller threats who could take something on?

Speaker 2 Something worth thinking about. Speaking of smaller threats,

Speaker 2 time for our weekly nice guy talk check-in with

Speaker 2 Rob Mahoney. Where are you?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just on guy talk. I just want to read a list of what Guy Talk was up to this episode.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Tries to parlay getting pistol whipped in the head into a bodyguard job.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 He gets no indication whatsoever that Suitela is interested in him being her bodyguard. No affirmation whatever, like whatsoever.

Speaker 1 But that does not stop him from flagging down Mook as she's talking with her friends and walking with her friends to give her this non-update about his life.

Speaker 1 Very important to him that she knows all about it.

Speaker 1 Hollinger's bodyguards then come to him and ask him to please chill. In fact, maybe you were closer to losing your job than getting promoted to being a bodyguard.

Speaker 2 I'm not the character of that conversation.

Speaker 1 How would you describe it?

Speaker 2 They come to bully him.

Speaker 2 Little Turkey Wants to Be a Rooster.

Speaker 1 I'm going to say some people describe

Speaker 1 some people deserve to be bullied sometimes, Joe. This guy is

Speaker 1 a weaker anti-guy talking agenda. I hate it.
He is way too big for his britches right now when all that he did was fail fail in his job.

Speaker 1 Like the stance that he should maybe be fired for this, I actually think is pretty reasonable, right? Like he had one job and it's don't let cars zoom in and out of here. And he did both.

Speaker 2 Well, yes. Listen, I'm not saying he deserved a promotion.
I don't think he should be a Hollinger bodyguard because I'd be very bad at it. I don't.
I think he'd be bad at it.

Speaker 2 I don't want that for him.

Speaker 2 But I, I just, okay. We got a, we got an email from our listener, Hank, and I think

Speaker 2 it's a good perspective to have. Whether or not you're right, I actually don't know if you're going to be right at the end of the day and I'm going to look like an asshole if I get guy talk.

Speaker 2 I have no idea.

Speaker 1 This girl can't even hang out with her friends without getting cornered by this guy. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 She, whatever.

Speaker 1 No, I want to interrogate a little bit because I think a lot of people interpret Mook's reactions to Guy Talk, in which she is very smiley and I think generally friendly as her being interested in his advances.

Speaker 1 She has expressed no such interest at any point to anything he has said. It has all all been a polite smile, a nod, I will see you later, a very like friendly exchange.

Speaker 1 She's being polite to him, and he is going way hard all the time in a way that, to me, spells trouble.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 He might be right. And I will look like an asshole.
And that's a reality that I'm willing to accept.

Speaker 2 I happen to believe. that the MOOC and Guy Talk story is very sweet.
And I think there's a way in which Mike White is actually like

Speaker 2 kind of a romantic.

Speaker 2 and all these other things.

Speaker 2 Obviously, we're rooting for Chelsea and Rick to figure it out.

Speaker 2 But our listener, Hank, run in, just to sort of put some, Hank, who says he's from sort of a similarly like

Speaker 2 his family's from a similarly like non-urban small Southeast Asian village environment.

Speaker 2 He said, where everyone is locally employed, service worker, contend to not be a farmer or hard laborer, the still pervasive historical context of parents approving matches and stable income being quite enough for a satisfactory marriage shouldn't be discounted as just quote nice guy vibes whether or not mook is looking for an exotic baddie a la season two's portia is separate from this context it could simply be mike white's own creative liberty and i dare say personal injection into an otherwise ho-hum but stable lifestyle just giving a perspective as someone's whose ancestral roots are part of that world so this idea that like the conversation that mook and guy talk have had at lunch in a previous episode where he was like talking about his mom and they've known each other forever brothers all that stuff yeah And it's like, on the one hand,

Speaker 2 from our sort of 2025 American perspective, we're like, is this the move? But, you know, perhaps in the environment that they live in, that is the move, you know? So.

Speaker 1 But he made that pitch. And I would not say she jumped at it.

Speaker 2 I don't think she jumped at it. I just don't think she said hard no.
No.

Speaker 1 But they might have the like, look, if both of us are single in 20 years, let's figure this thing out kind of arrangement. But I just, I don't see this going well for Guy Talk.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 We also saw him leave an offering of bananas at a shrine. And I thought that was very cool.
The four-headed god,

Speaker 2 which is called the Erewhon Shrine, which has nothing to do with really expensive movies that you can get in L.A. Okay.

Speaker 2 Belinda and Pornchai. Yes.
Speaking of love stories to believe in, how are you feeling about this?

Speaker 1 I mean, it's lovely. Belinda had herself a day.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Gary business aside, you know, she gets a great treatment. She gets shown around the grounds.
She gets to spend some quality time with porn chai being like held tenderly in a pool.

Speaker 1 What, like, what is what is the going rate for that? Or is that kind of an off-menu thing?

Speaker 2 Priceless, honestly.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying it seems nice. I would do it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 If porn chai would volunteer at my expense to hold me tenderly in a pool and help me kind of levitate and float, that sounds sounds like a lovely afternoon.

Speaker 2 Bliss. And then he like sort of, you know, has this awkward little goodbye with her.
Porn Chai has had too much, aka like one.

Speaker 2 Too much for him.

Speaker 2 And then Belinda hears something

Speaker 2 in her villa. Is that what we were meant to believe? Not sees something, right? She hears something.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Could you kind of identify what you think she was reacting to? Because it's hard to tell sometimes amid an amazing score. Like, I love the score of White Lotus.

Speaker 1 And we get the kind of like calls of the wild in like the monkey, like sounds of the jungle sense and also some like calls of the wild and every other conceivable sense happening in that score uh so very loud moaning very loud moaning happening you know through yoga during some of these scenes where characters are alone and kind of steaming about each other in various ways so i i don't quite know what she's identifying it sounds like maybe kind of like a creaking door like a step on wood like i couldn't quite identify it I know.

Speaker 2 I was, I kept going back through. I was like, am I supposed to see something out the window? Is there a shadow? And I think it's just a noise.
And I don't know what that noise is.

Speaker 2 You know, one has to worry that it's Greg Gary up to no good.

Speaker 1 Or a monkey with a gun.

Speaker 2 Or a monkey with a gun.

Speaker 1 You don't know. It could be anything.

Speaker 2 Or a snake. Okay.
How do you feel about

Speaker 2 Chekhov's toilet snake being introduced into this episode as a potential thing that could kill you?

Speaker 1 This is a very primal fear that I have had.

Speaker 1 I have not had nightmares about this, but it's one of those things where you read that news story or like in my case, like it was on the local news or something when I was like eight years old and it gets wedged in your brain.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then what are you to do about toilet snakes? You're defenseless.

Speaker 2 I used to read a lot of uh Dave Fairy

Speaker 2 columns and he wrote one about alligators, baby alligators coming up out of the out of the sewer. What? Like in Florida?

Speaker 1 Are they coming out of gutters or where are they coming from?

Speaker 2 I could not tell you and perhaps he made them up, but that, yes, I will say I haven't had dreams about them, but I have had thoughts about toilet gators.

Speaker 2 It might be something that is untrue, but it's something that Dave Berry wrote about that I believed in.

Speaker 1 How did you feel, Joe, about Rick as someone who believes very deeply in the freedom of snakes? You know, a liberator at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 I think this could not quite possibly be clear as a metaphor for him feeling like he's in a cage and

Speaker 2 needs to break out.

Speaker 2 People have been noting this snake motif because there is first the snake,

Speaker 2 first the snake choker that Chelsea was looking at in the boutique when

Speaker 2 during the smash and grab.

Speaker 1 I would think we have to see again, right? It was so pointedly on camera that it's like we will see it on someone and that'll give us a tip as to who may have committed the robbery.

Speaker 2 I would think Chloe, do not put that snake choker on, even if you were part of the robbery. Okay.

Speaker 2 So there's the snake choker, and then, of course, there is the snake that that literally bites her inside of this episode.

Speaker 2 Something that Amy Lou Wood said in an interview is she's like, Basically, Chelsea's the kind of person who goes through lives and sees snakes and just embrace them without any care of the worry of the danger that they might present.

Speaker 2 She's just like, Oh, you're a snake, I want to hug you. Never mind, you're poisonous thing.

Speaker 1 Chelsea, you cannot fix that Cobra.

Speaker 1 You cannot fix him.

Speaker 2 But can she fix Rick? Uh, can Amarita fix Rick? You know, like, what are we going to do?

Speaker 1 No, please. Sorry.
I didn't mean to interrupt.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, no. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 I do wonder this about Rick, though, because you're right about the metaphor, which is very clear on the surface. Him in the cage, the snakes in the cage, him feeling restrained in that way.

Speaker 1 But as he's kind of talking it out with Chelsea, there's a lot of discussion about snakes being inherently evil, right?

Speaker 1 And you get this bit from Rick about, well, even evil things shouldn't be treated like shit because it only makes them more evil.

Speaker 1 And as a reflection of people treating him a certain way because of what he admits are the bad things that he's done, we don't really know what those are yet. Yeah.
Understandable.

Speaker 1 Putting it in context and understanding his worldview as it applies to whatever he's after with Hollinger is a little bit more complicated because we have every indication, Joe, that you were correct, that Rick is trying to get some kind of revenge.

Speaker 2 Satisfaction.

Speaker 1 Some kind of satisfaction, as he says. A lot of signs pointing directly to the idea that Hollinger probably murdered his father or was involved in some way, and he's looking for satisfaction.

Speaker 1 But in that case, is Hollinger not also a snake? Is he not also someone who is not inherently evil and like shouldn't be, shouldn't be met with purely evil in response?

Speaker 2 It really strikes me as

Speaker 2 satisfaction, by the way, as a lot of people pointed out, is like iconic, like dual language, like I demand satisfaction, like I demand a duel.

Speaker 1 I thought you meant dual language, but you mean dual, like. dual language.

Speaker 2 Like pistols at dogs. Yes.

Speaker 1 Dual. I thought you were talking about the other kinds of satisfaction that Chelsea is hooking him up with.

Speaker 2 Oh, there you go. Also true.

Speaker 2 But I think that

Speaker 2 Rick, I just really fundamentally feel like Rick is someone who is at a crossroads. And on one branch of the road is Chelsea.

Speaker 2 And on the other branch of the road is Jim Hollinger, Bangkok satisfaction. And one is a good choice and one is a bad choice.

Speaker 2 And I genuinely don't know based on previous seasons of White Lotus what choice Rick is going to make. I'm rooting for him to take the chelsea branch of the road um

Speaker 1 but we've i've rooted for so many characters in white lotus that they have disappointed me so i i don't i don't know not the show for it the the bit of foreshadowing i am most concerned with at this point is not a dead body it's not chelsea almost dying several times in this episode it's her holding up a tank that says you break it you buy it with a broken heart on it and saying should i buy this

Speaker 1 just does not seem like things are going to go well for her at the end of the day and i hope i hope rick Snake or not, makes some kind of choice that makes sense for both of them.

Speaker 1 I just, I don't know.

Speaker 2 I'm very worried about everyone, and that's exactly where we should be. Episode three of my letters.
Okay, to wrap up, we got this fun prompt from our listener, Sean.

Speaker 2 Which may or may not be tangentially related to an upcoming episode of The Rewatchables. Who can say?

Speaker 2 But Sean says, between Jennifer Coolidge and Parker Posey, it seems like Mike White really excels at dipping into the Christopher Guest mockumentary talent pool.

Speaker 2 Which two Christopher Guest stars would you like to see in season four? One hotel staff and one guest?

Speaker 2 And just for people who are listening, in case you don't know the great filmmaker, Christopher Guest, he made things like Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Win, Best in Show,

Speaker 2 but did not make Spinal Tap,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 for your consideration, and Mascus, a couple other things.

Speaker 2 And he has a stable of actors that he likes to use. Jennifer Coolidge being a repeat offender,

Speaker 2 Parker Posey as well. Parker Posey in Waiting for Guffman is one of my favorite things I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 She would have pre-White Lotus if you told me and you gave me this prompt and you told me the general construction of the show. Parker Posey would be my first round pick.

Speaker 1 So dreams really do come true.

Speaker 2 They do.

Speaker 2 Jennifer Coolidge, sneaky star, obviously. Tanya being crucial to all three seasons of White Lotus.

Speaker 2 Double Emmy Award winner, Jennifer Coolidge. So Rob Mahoney

Speaker 2 of the classic Christopher guest stable,

Speaker 2 who are you picking to check in at the White Lotus and who are you picking to work at the White Lotus?

Speaker 1 I'm going to say we might have to like step out of time a little bit just because some of the Cassidy's movies are getting quite up there.

Speaker 1 And so it would limit them to basically being like elderly grandparental figures popping into these stories, which would also be fine. And I would be open to.
To me, the guest, I would love.

Speaker 1 Fred Willard on this show as sort of like an ecstatic, overly friendly, in everyone's business kind of guest in a way that I feel like we don't get often enough, right?

Speaker 1 We have a lot of rich people who kind of want to be in their little pods and not enough of them who want aggressively to be friends with everyone. And I would love him in a context like this.

Speaker 2 Except for Kate, who was like, remember, we were at that.

Speaker 1 But she doesn't even want to be friends. She just wants to make the social connection and get the capital and then go back to her table.

Speaker 2 Don't you remember me? I talk about beans a lot. Is that not interesting to you?

Speaker 1 Can you imagine the bean talk at that baby shower? It was off the charts.

Speaker 2 She was talking about heritage beans. She has a lot to say.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 So you've got Fred Willard as a guest. Who do you have working at the White Lotus?

Speaker 1 Our old friend and recent friend, Joe, Bob Balaban, feels like he would be great to work the staff at the White Lotus.

Speaker 2 I always pick Bob Balaban, but I was really hoping you would pick Bob.

Speaker 1 How can you not?

Speaker 1 He just reads as neurotic and exacting so easily that the idea of a bunch of rich, privileged guests winding him up is not a stretch of the imagination.

Speaker 2 I have chosen for my guest

Speaker 2 Michael McKean

Speaker 2 of, you know, Better Call Sal and other fame, obviously. I just think he would do a really good job as like a disgruntled guest at the White Lotus.

Speaker 1 Just like he's often quite disgruntled, honestly.

Speaker 2 Yeah, patriarch of the family, comically disgruntled.

Speaker 2 giving real Chuck vibes from Better Call Sal. And then John Michael Higgins as a hotel manager.
I love John Michael Higgins.

Speaker 2 I think he's a really stealth, like lethal performer in these Christopher Guest movies. And also has done a lot of great voice acting work.

Speaker 2 You might know him from Legends of Korra, among other things. And I just think as like a hotel manager who is like so good at putting on the like smarmy

Speaker 2 front while actively hating you,

Speaker 2 I think he would be absolutely killer at that. So

Speaker 2 neither of us went for Eugene Levy or Catherine O'Hara. A couple obvious picks, Jane Lynch, anything like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I feel like Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara have already done like Crass Rich Person pretty recently, and so I'm also hotel management quite recently.

Speaker 1 Very true, like we've seen it admittedly in a slightly different flavor, but let's let's branch it out a little bit.

Speaker 2 I agree. Um, okay, if you have any thoughts about uh, Christopher Guest, regular who should show up in White Lotus, I'd love to hear it.

Speaker 2 Please, monkeyshootout at gmail.com or prestige TV at spotify.com. Anything else you want to say about this episode or White Whitelows in general before we go? Rob Mahoney?

Speaker 1 I had just had a bit of a feeling with Chloe, who's played by Charlotte LeBonne, as far as like she was

Speaker 1 registering in my brain is very familiar and I couldn't put a finger on why. And in this episode, it finally kind of clicked for me that she has such a Winona writer thing going on.

Speaker 1 Just like kind of a resemblance in a way.

Speaker 1 Very different energies, very different kind of places in terms of like, this is not a Winona part, but there's some kind of similarity there that's grabbing me.

Speaker 2 She's in, she's in reminding me of Chrissy Ritter a lot.

Speaker 1 Oh, yes.

Speaker 2 Not energy-wise, but looks-wise, for sure.

Speaker 1 What do we think of Chloe and Saxon? We wouldn't really remark upon their budding friendship.

Speaker 2 I hear you're a douche. Isn't that what she says? I hear you're a douche.

Speaker 1 But she's into it, you know?

Speaker 2 Is she into it or is he a mark? I can't tell.

Speaker 1 She's into something. She's into the idea of it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 He definitely looks wealthy, and that is something that she seems interested in. So

Speaker 2 love that for her. I don't know.

Speaker 1 uh are you rooting for those two crazy kids joey and saxon i cannot bring myself to root for them but i will be watching with great curiosity where their relationship goes great okay

Speaker 2 so that does it for season three episode three of the white lotus uh robin i will be back at the end of the week to talk more severance exciting um

Speaker 2 We should note that Bill and Mal and I are also covering White Lotus immediately after the episode ends on Sunday nights. You can watch all of this stuff.

Speaker 1 One note on that. You guys mentioned on the last Sunday pod, vis-a-vis guy talk.

Speaker 1 I take this with great consideration. I've thought about it.
I've talked to my agents. I will not be hosting the Creep Radar podcast, despite the fact that it was so graciously offered to me.

Speaker 2 So you haven't seen the art we've created for it yet.

Speaker 1 I have not, but also who simply has the time? You know, there are so many creeps. There are only so many hours in the day.
I could not be bothered.

Speaker 2 You are but one Rob.

Speaker 1 Seriously.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 we'll let Bill know that's your formal

Speaker 2 polite pass.

Speaker 1 Let him down gently, please.

Speaker 2 Okay, so you watch all of those, including Rob's new show. What is it? Creep detector?

Speaker 1 Creep radar. Creep radar.

Speaker 1 All because I am empirically, increasingly right about guy talk.

Speaker 1 That should qualify me for the job, but I don't want it.

Speaker 2 On the Ringer TV channel on YouTube or on Spotify,

Speaker 2 you know, you just open the thing and there it's us talking.

Speaker 2 so, uh, that is what is going on. Also, we hear you.
We will be back to the pit. We cannot tell you exactly when, but we will be back.

Speaker 2 Um, and thank you to Donnie Beacham for this episode, to John Richter, who was like literally breaking his back to put out all this video content for you guys.

Speaker 2 To CTA for being the best and helping out this morning, and uh,

Speaker 2 Justin Sales, always

Speaker 2 the guy. Uh, we will see you soon.
Bye.